President-elect Donald Trump (R) has spent the past few weeks putting together his cabinet and other roles within government, one of which happens to be an avid poker player.
Billy Long (R-Missouri) is Trump's pick to head the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after the incoming republican president takes office Jan. 20, 2025, four years after he was removed from the position following a defeat at the hands of Joe Biden (D).
Long, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2023, has quite a history in the game of poker. He only has about $6,000 in recorded live tournament cashes, according to The Hendon Mob. But he's been known to play in local cash games often for many years and has entered World Poker Tour (WPT) events since he was ousted from Congress in 2022.
“Billy brings 32 years of experience running his own businesses in Real Estate and, as one of the premier Auctioneers in the Country,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social app. “He then served 12 years in Congress, because he ‘felt it was important for his constituents to have a Representative who has signed the front of a check!’
Long, an auctioneer as the president-elect said, will serve as the IRS commissioner, a position currently held by Danny Werfel, not to be confused with Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Danny Wuerffel. The incoming commissioner will likely guide the IRS in a different direction. Biden made efforts to increase the tax department's auditing capabilities, to the dismay of conservatives.
Political experts anticipate Trump's administration will pull back on IRS funding. But it's unclear if Long will be lenient on gambling taxes given his poker background. The role of an IRS commissioner is to plan, direct, control, and evaluate IRS policies, programs, and performance.
The presumed next IRS commissioner went viral in 2019 during Trump's impeachment proceedings when he showed up with a wad of cash hanging out of his pocket (see photo above), as a Reddit user discovered. Perhaps he'd just smashed the local $1/$2 game.
Long's poker passion has been a topic of criticism from political opponents at times. The Missouri native hosted a $1,000-per-person poker night fundraiser in 2015, which angered some Democrats. One blogger at the time wrote that Long "seems to spend as much time in Las Vegas as he does Springfield (MO) or Washington D.C."
